


Paradise Birds

by Dedicate Kiwicrocus (cranky__crocus)



Series: SMACKDOWN '11 Round Two - Team Discipline [40]
Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/F, Goldenlake, smackdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-02
Updated: 2011-06-02
Packaged: 2017-10-20 01:32:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranky__crocus/pseuds/Dedicate%20Kiwicrocus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rosethorn knew the words were on the tip of her tongue, and that that was a very dangerous place for words to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paradise Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Written for SMACKDOWN at Goldenlake: fiefgoldenlake.proboards.com
> 
> I wanted a fic in which Rosie is the confessor.

Rosethorn knew the words were on the tip of her tongue, and that that was a very dangerous place for words to be.

            She tended to _say_ the words on the tip of her tongue precisely when she should not: whatever the most inconvenient or improper moment was, it would find her and yank the words out into the air and others’ ears. There was no taking them back then, and Rosethorn was not known for any ability to soothe such pains away.

            (In many cases, like when the words on the tip of her tongue were “Dedicate Moonwarbler, you are by far the most _aggravating_ person I have ever been forced to know: would you—kindly or not— _shut up_ ” she was less inclined to wish them back, no matter the consequences. Dedicate Moonwarbler had been a fuzz-headed Water-type, anyway.)

            But these words were special; they could not erupt unplanned. It was necessary, to Rosethorn’s great grievance, that she actually plan an interaction she would gladly have run into weeks of Infirmary duty to avoid.

 

 

Rosethorn leaned against the doorframe a moment, flowerpot perched on her hip as she watched Lark at her floor loom. No one could comprehend ‘methodology’ who had not witnessed Lark at the loom, shooting the shuttle across the shed between two sets of tight threads, beating the weft and swapping threads with the grace and fluidity some dancers could not achieve on stage. Rosethorn felt honoured that Lark had taught her such terms one summer afternoon filled with birdsong and sunlight—though they had teased each other relentlessly through the lesson. She smiled to remember.

            But, as was often the case, Lark could sense when she wasn’t alone; she had probably been extending a courtesy to Rosethorn, allowing her to sit and watch unquestioned.

            “Rosethorn?” she inquired at last, voice soft and almost dreamy with her concentration so clearly on her work.

            “Yes, just me.” Rosethorn entered the room and bee-lined to one of the long tables near the open side of the workroom—the shudders had come in handy, then. She grinned and placed the flower—a proud Bird of Paradise from south of the Pebbled Sea—upon the table and turned it, then once more, until she found the gentle slant of it to be perfectly placed.

            She leaned against the end of the table and watched Lark work. The woman gazed over her shoulder to take a look at Rosethorn, but the flower captured her attention. Her hands stopped, hovered a second and fell to rest against her thighs.

            “Rosethorn it’s _magnificent_ ,” she breathed, admiring the startling colour and spiked shape of it.

            Rosethorn grinned, slightly sheepish—she was not in the habit of gift-giving, not in the sense that truly mattered. She scuffed a bare toe against the workroom floor. “It means that, actually: magnificent. Bird of Paradise.” She paused and touched one hand to the tip of the flower, taking comfort and drawing strength from a plant’s presence. “You’re Lark, now, which are drab birds on the outside, really, and what I mean to say…what I mean to say is you’re _not_. I think the name fits anyway. And…well, here’s a Bird of Paradise for you, to fit your outside too.”

            Lark smiled to hear Rosethorn tripping over herself in such a manner—so uncharacteristic and yet appreciated. She nodded and turned on the bench to face Rosethorn and the flower.

            “It’s beautiful, thank you. I can see why it’s called Bird of Paradise—if I saw it quickly, I’m sure I would mistake it for a bird; they do get colourful further south. Thank you for the gift, Rosie.”

            Rosethorn flushed at the short-name and damned her lips for smiling. “I asked you not to—”

            “Ah, yes, my apologies, Rose _thorn_.” Somehow, the statement and apology did not slacken Lark’s smile—nor dampen the humour in her eyes. She made to stand, but Rosethorn stopped her with a raised hand.

            Rosethorn swallowed and danced her weight from foot to foot, eyes narrowed at the floor. She looked up after a moment. “I like you, Lark.”

            “I like you too, Rosethorn.”

            “No, I—” Rosethorn cupped the flower’s stem near the soil line. “I _like_ you, Lark. And don’t feign obtuseness, you know what I mean. I just…wanted to tell you now, or I’d blurt it out at some terrible time like during a Midnight Service if you were looking at me just the way you are now and…”

            “Rosethorn—”

            “And I know you love women, but you’ve loved the likes of Yazmín and other Paradise Birds like yourself, so I’m not pressuring you to like _me_ and I won’t make it awkward, but you had to know. And now you do.” Rosethorn shut her mouth, eyes stricken, and prepared to jolt away like a spooked colt.

            Lark rose from her chair. “Rosethorn, stop, _please_.”

            The emphasis in ‘please’ arrested Rosethorn’s skittish feet immediately, mid-gait.

            “Let me grab my lap-loom here,” she plucked up the frame and pocketed the pieces, “and we can spend the day in your garden.”

 

 

In the garden Rosethorn found herself—for one of the few times in her life—unable to work, for all the thoughts competing in her mind. She sat with her plants and pots and soil next to Lark, but instead sat relishing the feel of grass between her toes.

            “Paradise birds may be magnificent in the fleeting seconds you see them,” Lark murmured, as if to herself, but surely aware of how Rosethorn’s ears strained to hear any words from the woman. “But nothing can get them to stay put when they don’t wish it. I am a lark for a reason. And you, dear friend, are a _rose_ : you are the very icon of love and beauty, and you have the sense to stay where people might see it, if _they_ have the sense to see past the thorns.” Her next words were slow and stressed, yet still soft: “I like you, Rosethorn.”

            Rosethorn seldom blushed, but she did so now. She hid her face-splitting smile behind her hand, but Lark glanced to her eyes and seemed to find it there.

            “I don’t _really_ mind when you call me Rosie,” Rosethorn said at last.

            Lark placed her hand on Rosie’s for all of a second between shuttle-passes, but the heat there set Rosethorn more aflame than the summer sun spreading over them both in the garden.

            _I love it, in fact_ , she thought as she touched her leg to Lark’s, _but I won’t tell you that; some things you must work out without a confession._

            Lark seemed prepared for the challenge.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! C:


End file.
